


she's got a switchblade kick

by Lint



Series: My Serpentine [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Serpent Cheryl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 18:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lint/pseuds/Lint
Summary: Cheryl never wanted to be a Serpent.But Cousin Betty is right, it will make things easier.





	she's got a switchblade kick

 

 

She has always been the kind of girl whose reputation preceded her.

 

It's to be expected, really, the oncoming wave of assumptions ready to be made about her. This once reigning queen of the Northside and her startling fall from grace. All the money in the world, based on lies and subterfuge, her well off family nothing more than a bunch of drug peddlers.

 

How she's been placed in the care of an Aunt who is not really, (the actual source of shared blood with her cousin dead for nearly a decade in a tragic accident that took him and her other cousin's lives), down on the Southside.

 

She anticipates the looks.

 

Her family rife with scandal far beyond the narcotics game. How her father killed her brother, seemingly over nothing more than a misunderstanding with sources and supply, and was then taken out by her own mother once the town wide mystery of who killed Jason was discovered. How that mother then tried, and failed, to kill her too. All for the sake of whatever legitimate inheritance the Blossom name had left. How she burned down her own mansion in post traumatic shock.

 

She accepts the assumption that people will regard her more of a victim than survivor.

 

It's certainly what the giant mass of a girl must think, blocking her way in the hall, just five minutes into her first day at Southside High. Demanding the she pay a toll for safe passage, in what she claims is her school.

 

Cheryl can tell by the patch on the girl's hideous denim vest, that she's a member of the rival gang to her cousin's group of snake charmers, not that this person has any idea she's affiliated in the slightest way. That she's just some bully who sees new meat and acts accordingly.

 

The spiel goes on for nearly thirty seconds, the girl getting more and more aggressive, as Cheryl readily ignore all threats of bodily harm. Until the girl actually dares to lay a massive hand, enveloping almost her entire shoulder in one palm, and Cheryl's defenses rise up on instinct.

 

It's years of self defense training, because should anyone dare try to trifle with a Blossom they had a surprise coming, that makes her hand snap out flat and focused connecting sharply with the girl's throat. She drops to her knees with a thud, face reddening instantly at the sudden lack of oxygen, as she gasps loudly for breath.

 

“Holy shit, Cheryl.” Cousin Betty deadpans, appearing at her side. “If the Serpents weren't going to accept you on my behalf, they sure will now.”

 

Cheryl regards her curiously.

 

“That's Large Marge Wultownski,” Betty fills in. “The Ghoulies' number one enforcer here at Southside, and you just dropped her like a sack of potatoes.”

 

Cheryl gasps when Betty kicks the girl while she's down.

 

This school is a nightmare.

 

/\

 

Cheryl sits on the edge of the bed in what feels like a rented room.

 

Hers only because Aunt Alice had given it, but nothing about this house makes her feel as if she belongs, despite whatever insistence the elder woman had to the contrary. It doesn't help that it was once occupied by that hobo Jughead, before he pulled up stakes, and moved to Toledo to be with his mom and little sister. Cousin Betty lays sprawled out on the floor, doing her homework, because she's still hoping to get into college despite Southside High's acceptance rate being basically zero.

 

She brushes her hair, watching Betty make notes, and sighs.

 

“Something on your mind?” Betty asks without looking at her.

 

So many things, Cheryl doesn't say. Right now it would be dinner time at Thornhill, probably something poached, and everyone would eat without saying a word to each other because that's just how Blossom family meals came to pass. God, what she wouldn't give in the moment for that dreadful silence. Just because it was familiar. Because anything had to be better than her newfound role as a pauper stranded on the wrong side of town.

 

“How long did it take?” she asks softly.

 

The question pulls Betty's attention away from her schoolwork, looking back with confused eyes to the context of it.

 

“How long did what take?”

 

“Living here,” Cheryl continues. “After... Everything that happened to your family. How long did it take to get used to it?”

 

Betty nods, finally understanding.

 

“Awhile,” she admits. “I mean, I was six and suddenly an only child when Mom moved us down here, even if this was my grandparents house I'd never actually been inside it before they died. So yeah, took some getting used to. New house, having to make new friends, and everything being a bit rougher than the Northside. But then she started dating F.P., and suddenly everything in our lives was about the Serpents. Believe it or not, that kind of made things easier.”

 

Cheryl does not, in fact, believe that. Not for a second. But keeps the remark to herself.

 

“I don't want to be a Serpent,” she says instead.

 

Betty doesn't seem surprised by that.

 

“Not everyone does,” she replies, going back to her homework. “But sometimes the choice is made for you.”

 

/\

 

The Whyte Wyrm is the kind of place she never would have entered without a tetanus shot.

 

But it's Friday, she survived her first week at Southside High, and Betty pretty much insisted that she come. Though the girl broke away the second they walked in, leaving Cheryl to fend for herself in a biker bar where anyone who knows who she is, already dislikes her on general principal. Especially that tall drink of water Sweet Pea, the most inaccurate jolly pirate nickname she's ever heard, spotting her standing there and giving a scowl.

 

She takes out her phone, having nothing to look at and nobody to text, but needing some kind of distraction when her name is called from behind the bar. At first she doesn't think she heard right, because most of the school Serpents accept her presence on the daily at Betty's behest, but they don't make a point of being friendly.

 

“Cheryl,” the voice repeats. “Hey, Blossom!”

 

Making a big show of putting the phone back into her purse, she narrows her eyes, immediately suspicious to the intent of whoever wants her attention. Her head tilts curiously on discovering it's... What was her name? She's sure she's heard it before. It shouldn't be too hard to recall as she's the only other official Serpent girl besides Cousin Betty. The girl version of a typically boy name. Sammy? Billie?

 

“What are you drinking?” she asks, pulling a towel off her shoulder to wipe away a glass in hand.

 

Cheryl thinks it a trick question.

 

“I'm sorry, what?”

 

The girl smirks with shimmering lips. Too much gloss, Cheryl judges. She definitely needs to dial it down a notch, but her eye make up is remarkably on point. Pretty, in that Southside kind of way.

 

“What. Are. You. Drinking?”

 

Again Cheryl doesn't fully grasp the simplicity.

 

“Nothing?” she replies. “I mean, I'm not twenty-one.”

 

The girl actually laughs.

 

“And the outlaw biker set cares about that, why?”

 

Okay, yes. She's participated in her fair share of underage drinking. But it was always at a party, or some kind of high society event, where people her age somehow got away with that kind of thing. Part of her never imagined being able to waltz into a bar at sixteen and order a drink. Then again, she also didn't imagine being served said drink by someone her own age, either.

 

“Gin and tonic,” Cheryl replies coolly. “Easy on the tonic.”

 

The girl nods her head, clearly impressed, and Cheryl is oddly satisfied by her reaction. She goes about mixing the simple cocktail, and places it on the bar with a clink. Cheryl takes a cautious sip, but it goes down so smooth, she's quick to take another.

 

“Compliments to the bartender,” she offers up, raising the glass in appreciation.

 

“Toni.”

 

I knew it, Cheryl thinks to herself, smiling around the glass before taking another drink.

 

“I could tell you didn't remember,” she teases. “But don't worry about it.”

 

Cheryl sets the empty glass down.

 

“Oh, I wasn't.” She insists, tapping the glass for a refill.

 

Toni smirks again, but goes to make another.

 

Maybe this hole in the wall isn't so bad after all.

 

/\

 

“Toni's got a thing for you,” says Cousin Betty, just before she goes for a pull of her vanilla shake.

 

They're in a booth at Pop's, one month into her residence on the Southside, brought back to familiar territory for the first time. Betty sticks out like a sore thumb, her Serpent jacket on display for all to see with that ever present bandanna wrapped in her hair, despite insisting that she still comes here all the time.

 

Cheryl picks at one of her fries, not wholly interested in actually eating it.

 

“You say that like it isn't totally obvious,” she replies smugly.

 

Betty snorts around her straw, quick to wipe away the bit of shake that dribbles down her chin, before sitting up fully and leaning back into the booth.

 

“Wow,” she remarks flatly. “The confidence is astounding.”

 

Cheryl rolls her eyes dramatically.

 

“Why shouldn't it be?” she tosses back. “I mean, why wouldn't she? I'm spectacular.”

 

Betty bursts into laughter, just as the bell above the door dings, pulling both girls attention toward it. The playful expression drops instantly from Cheryl's face at the sight of the familiar pair of Archie and Veronica walking through the door. A pang of guilt swirls in her stomach, having gone radio silent on the girl since the big move, despite the fact that her friend had made an effort to keep in touch.

 

Luckily the lovebirds don't spot them, heading toward the opposite side of the diner, and Cheryl breathes a sigh of relief. Betty however, keeps looking, and Cheryl almost wants to kick her shin under the table to get her to stop.

 

“Still carrying that torch?” she asks with sigh.

 

Betty's head snaps quickly back to her.

 

“What? No. What?”

 

Cheryl shakes her head.

 

“God, Betts. You made out with her once. At one of my parties, which you didn't even want to come to.”

 

Betty blushes furiously in lieu of the anger flashing in her eyes.

 

“Because of a game of spin the bottle that you orchestrated,” she fires back. Then softer. “Maybe I just wanted more than seven minutes in heaven.”

 

“Hmm,” Cheryl hums. “And there's no other motivation behind that? Like stealing your childhood BFF's girl because he forgot you existed once you ended up on the Southside?”

 

Betty glances back at the couple once more.

 

“Icing on the cake maybe,” she admits, before turning back to Cheryl. “She's such a good kisser, though.”

 

Cheryl shakes her head, and finally eats that fry.

 

/\

 

Funny thing is, once she learns Toni's name, she can't stop saying it. Not out loud, of course. Certainly not to the girl in question. Rather, she plays it in her mind anytime she has a thought to herself. Toni, TT, Antoinette. Each variation carrying such docile tones of possibility. And Cousin Betty is right, Toni definitely has a thing for her, anyone with a pair of eyes can see that. But she still hesitates to take any action.

 

They become fast friends, despite Toni's interest, and Cheryl's yearning for more. Yes, she's fully aware that the one time in her entire life she's ever deigned to take that next step with a girl, her mother ruined it so completely Cheryl hasn't entertained the idea of another since. Not until Toni, anyway. There's probably some psycho babble definition for it, but one she doesn't care to learn.

 

Cheryl knows Toni's lips will be soft.

 

Her kisses sweet.

 

But she can't help to torture herself by keeping that candy jar just out of reach.

 

/\

 

No one in school has forgotten that Cheryl Blossom took out Large Marge Wultownski on her very first day.

 

Definitely not the behemoth herself, always seething from the sidelines, just waiting to get revenge. Which happens because Cheryl wasn't thinking, staying late in the library because she found a book that actually helped with her schoolwork, past the patience of her cousin and the Serpents but insisting she would be fine on her own.

 

How wrong she was, when Large Marge grabs her the second she walks out the door, slamming her against the wall and pressing the blade of a knife to her throat.

 

“Not so tough now, are you Northsider?” she asks, voice gruff.

 

Cheryl briefly wonders if that's her doing, a strike to the throat resulting in a damaged larynx. But she can't really ask with the knife held so close it will cut her if she even flinches. Not that she's afraid. No, she's strangely calm about the entire situation. Like maybe, just maybe, her mother was supposed to succeed. That she belongs with Jason in death just as she always had in life.

 

Large Marge is pretty angry she's so complicit. She wants a fight. She wants Cheryl to beg. Pressing the knife even closer when realizing she's not going to get it, Cheryl can feel her own blood begin to trickle down her neck. Eyes falling closed, she can see Jason off in the distance, that familiar smile she's missed so much with a hand waving for her to come with him.

 

She hits the ground with a sharp thud, head cracking against the wall so that her vision blurs, but she can just make out the sight of Cousin Betty and Fangs Fogarty standing over a sprawled Large Marge. There's a third, who must be Sweet Pea, but Cheryl has a hard time believing he would come to her rescue.

 

“Hey Blossom,” a voice to her right calls. “Look at me.”

 

Make that a fourth.

 

“Cheryl,” Toni continues with a snap of her fingers. “Over here. Come on, look.”

 

Cheryl turns her head, vision finally coming into focus, to the prettiest face she's seen in a good long while.

 

“Toni,” she says softly, unable to keep the smile from her lips. “Hi.”

 

Toni chuckles as though she can't help it.

 

“Hit your head pretty good, didn't you?”

 

Cheryl nods, never would she have imagined that their first kiss, would be with Toni holding her hand to Cheryl's neck to hold back the blood from a minor nick, while her cousin and friends proceeded to kick the crap out of her bully. But then, her life has always been some kind of Shakespeare tragedy.

 

She winces with the sound of the three Serpents curb stomping the lone Ghoulie, though she's learned enough about gang mentality to know that Large Marge wanted her vendetta to be carried out in a solitary manner, but that she wouldn't be that way for long.

 

 

“We should go,” she says to Toni, who agrees calling to her cohorts.

 

/\

 

Cheryl never wanted to be a Serpent.

 

But Cousin Betty is right, it will make things easier.

 

So she memorizes all their silly little rules, shouts them at the top of her lungs with a bonfire blazing at her back, and walks out of the crowd with a jacket that she begrudgingly accepts looks fantastic on her. Toni is the one to slip it on, punctuating the ceremony with a kiss that has all the Serpents howling.

 

She doesn't want the tattoo to mar up her creamy alabaster skin, but sadly it's one of the rules she'd just shouted. So she gets it just under her armpit on the left side, the pain of the needle against her ribs worse than she ever imagined, but Toni is there holding her hand the entire time.

 

Later, when they're alone, Toni gives her another initiation gift, a pearl handled switchblade with 'Bombshell' engraved on one side.

 

Jolly pirate nicknames, Cheryl muses, as Toni leans in for a kiss.

 

Never did she imagine getting one, would finally make her feel like she belonged somewhere.

 

 

 


End file.
